


this is what i mean

by alligatorblood



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, in my head carine is 6'3 ur welcome, my bad takes on grief yet again, supportive lesbian vampire mothers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alligatorblood/pseuds/alligatorblood
Summary: Esme frets, Carine recalls a patient, and Rosalie loves Bella. And that's that.
Relationships: Carine Cullen/Esme Cullen, Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 150





	this is what i mean

**Author's Note:**

> based on that jamie anderson quote that makes me scream. i wanted to do something short but still a little dramatique bc i am who i am.
> 
> i swapped carlisle for carine because I'm less in a daddy cullen mood and more in a double milf rights mood, like always!

The wind howls around the house as Emmett helps her carry in the groceries for tomorrow. Admittedly, she went a little overboard, Esme realizes that now that the kitchen island is covered along with most of the free counter space. It's not her fault she designed the world's most beautiful kitchen and remembered too late that she'd never get to use it. That is until her daughter fell in love with a human.

"So, is she going to be living with us for…" Her middle son takes a long look around the crowded kitchen. "Six to eight months?"

Esme swats at his arm with a baguette wrapped in paper. "Just for that, you get to be my sous-chef."

.

With the kitchen sorted, Esme does a sweep of the already immaculate house. It's difficult for her to put herself in the place of the human. What is she expecting of the place? How clean can it be before it appears cold and clinical? Is the temperature comfortable? Are the graduation caps lining the wall of the stairwell funny or sort of unsettling? She could spend all night like this.

Out of nowhere, a feather-light calmness lands on her shoulders, and with it, her mind drifts slightly. She smiles and turns to find Jasper eyeing her carefully from the top of the stairs. "You're very thoughtful," she says.

"It'll be okay," he says quietly. "House is perfect. Don't worry."

"Will you be alright?"

He nods stiffly, but she knows him well enough by now to see that he's unsure of himself, his control over the grip of thirst. He's been doing so well lately, she wishes he would give himself more credit.

"I will leave at the first sign. You have my word."

"We trust you. _Rose_ trusts you, otherwise she wouldn't bring her here."

He smiles faintly before ducking his head and darting back down the hallway. On the other side of the house, she can hear Edward playing something slow and complicated. A piece he's been adding to for the last twenty or so years. Somewhere above, Alice is singing quietly to herself a song that Emmett hates. She gets that feeling that rushes her at least a thousand times a day, the overwhelming love for the lot of them. Her kaleidoscopic family.

.

She knocks on the door to Carine's study, aware there's no need, but from the orange candlelight wavering underneath the door out into the hall, she figures her wife is in a mood.

"Come in." Her voice is quiet. Unfocused.

Carine's study is perhaps Esme's favorite room of the house entirely because she left the bulk of the design up to her wife. This unsurprisingly resulted in terribly mismatched bookshelves crammed floor to ceiling with the broken spines of books, clunky claw-footed furniture, curtains that belong in some castle, and candles cluttering every surface. It's much like walking into Carine's brain even if it does offend the eye.

Carine is sitting at her desk in the corner, hair unpinned and loose around her shoulders, shiny in the lowlight. The top few buttons of her shirt are undone and the collar is rumpled carelessly. She looks quite disheveled as she stares at the medical journal open in front of her. By the contemplation pressed into her face, Esme can tell she's not reading. Ruminating, more like.

"Shall I come back later?" Esme asks, amused at how quickly she looks up.

"No, no, come in." Carine stands and smooths her hands over her dark slacks. She crosses the room easily with her long stride. She wraps her arms around Esme and kisses her temple. "I'm sorry. I was just…thinking."

"About tomorrow?"

"Indirectly, I suppose."

"All good things, I hope?" Esme tries, but the slight frown across Carine's face remains. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure this is something you would want to hear."

"If it's you, I don't mind."

Carine sighs in such a _Rosalie_ way, Esme holds back a smile. She gestures toward the couch. "You're sure?" she asks once they're seated.

"Yes."

She gives her one last searching look before tracing to the beginning in the unspooling of her thoughts. "Once, so long ago and not easily forgotten, I treated a woman whose son had died suddenly. Drowned."

Esme's smile falters slightly. The years have sailed forward, but the death of a child will never be just another small tragedy to her.

Carine touches her face gently and holds up a pale finger. Her golden eyes fix past her wife's head as if the memory is threaded into the very air. "I don't like the word, but she was hysterical. Inconsolable. Her eyes were bloodshot when she came to me, worse than should have been possible. She was trembling and could barely speak. Her hands were always torn up. I could bandage her fine, but I couldn't _fix_ this. She had no family. No one to see her through her grief and it manifested in the strangest of ways." Carine blinks and turns her gaze back to Esme. "She would sit in the river where he died and pull stones from the bed. Hours she would spend like this, just piling rocks on the bank- his weight to the pound, she explained. She was pulling him out of that water. She spent all her time there. I went down to the bend where he died months after I saw her for the last time, and there were dozens of these rock castles. She saved him again and again, through ice and thaw, flood and drought, just not when it really mattered. They found her body crumpled against the last one, fingers dug into the heap, bloody and raw, heart given out."

She stops then. It's abrupt enough to make the air take on some weight. The candlelight flickers and the shadows of Carine's features bend across her plaintive face. Esme thinks of the early days of their time together. Her own anguish and struggle for equilibrium. Carine's patient outstretched hand.

"Grief is just love, you know," Esme says. "Love with no place to go."

Carine tilts her head as if considering that. "Rose wants to bring this girl into our home, our world. The way she speaks about her, neither superior nor afraid. Rare of our daughter, don't you think?" she says, smiling as Esme nods and leans into her side. "After what she's been through…I trust her heart. She has my blessing, of course, but I wonder if she's ready…because when I talk about love, this is what I mean."

"A thousand stone towers?"

"A place to set each other's grief. Someone to hold it for a moment of breath. You."

Again, that welling in her chest, love bubbling up. "You're that for me. For all of us, really," Esme says. She squeezes Carine's arm. "And you know Rose. Never a move until she's _quite_ sure. She's probably been agonizing over how to tell us for months."

"She's been so low for so long."

"I know, but you've seen her lately. She's bright, she's excited to go to school and see her, she's _nervous_. The two of you are actually reminding me of each other a lot lately."

Carine scoffs. "When am I nervous?"

"Oh, all the time," Esme says, untangling herself to stand. "In your own way."

Carine rolls her eyes. Rosalie yet again. "So what are you going to make?"

"I'm not sure. I've completely forgotten how to cook."

"Lovely."

.

Miles away, Bella holds Rosalie's head in her lap. The wind sways the evergreens around them as she runs her fingers through Rose's long blond hair, listening intently as she talks. Upstate New York in the thirties. Putting up with Edward for nearly a century. High school for the umpteenth time. Her life, a line. No natural end in sight.

She is circling around tomorrow. Bella can tell by the way she's talking so much. Usually, it's difficult to get her to say anything at all. Especially about her own life. As much as she appreciates the influx of information, there is a point they are straying from.

"I'm excited for tomorrow," Bella says. A slight push.

Rose closes her eyes and finds her middle. "Me too. They'll love you."

"Really?"

"Alice knows all." Rose cracks one eye open and smiles. "And _I_ love you. That's enough on its own. They're scared of me. Especially Edward."

"He should be."

Rose reaches up and touches her face with her cool fingertips. "Where would I be?" she says under her breath, almost too quiet to hear.

Bella covers her hand with her own. "I love you too, you know."

"You're not nervous?"

"What, a house of vampires? What's there to be nervous about?" Bella laughs a little. It's going to be like meeting the parents on an infinite multiplier. Every flaw on full display. "Okay. Maybe I'm a little nervous."

Rose grins wickedly. "Oh, you should be."


End file.
